Manusmriti with the Commentary of Medhatithi
by Ganganatha Jha | 1920 | 1,381,940 words | ISBN-10: 8120811550 | ISBN-13: 9788120811553
This is the English translation of the Manusmriti, which is a collection of Sanskrit verses dealing with ‘Dharma’, a collective name for human purpose, their duties and the law. Various topics will be dealt with, but this volume of the series includes 12 discourses (adhyaya). The commentary on this text by Medhatithi elaborately explains various t...
Verse 10.68
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
तावुभावप्यसंस्कार्याविति धर्मो व्यवस्थितः ।
वैगुण्याज् जन्मनः पूर्व उत्तरः प्रतिलोमतः ॥ ६८ ॥tāvubhāvapyasaṃskāryāviti dharmo vyavasthitaḥ |
vaiguṇyāj janmanaḥ pūrva uttaraḥ pratilomataḥ || 68 ||The settled law is that both these are unfit for the sacraments:—the former on account of the defect in his birth and the latter by reason of his being horn ‘in the inverse order.’—(68)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
Both kinds of children just described,—i.e., the Caṇḍāla and the Pārāśara—‘are unfit for the sacraments’;—i.e., should not be ‘initiated.’
The text proceeds to add a declamatory statement by way of an argument for what has been just asserted—‘The former on account of the defect in his birth’;—in the wise of the child born to a. Brāhmaṇa from the Śūdra woman, even though predominance may attach to the ‘seed,’ his birth is really defective, by reason of the lowness of his origin. ‘The latter,’—the Caṇḍāla, is born ‘in the inverse order,’ and is the. worst of the ‘inversely horn sons,’ on account of the lowness of his father, even though the ‘soil’ be regarded as the more important factor.—(68)
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
This verse is quoted in Vīramitrodaya (Saṃskāra, p. 396).
Comparative notes by various authors
(verses 10.66-73)